There’s a sign on the wall of the Reprographics Office at an American Air Force base that reads, “Poor planning on your part does not necessarily constitute an emergency on ours.” You can almost feel the exasperation of the person who wrote it.  What makes that statement so poignant is that the military seems to be oblivious to the reputation it has created for itself for being unable to plan ahead. That this is the case is expressed in a well-known observation made by many who have served in it – that 99% of what they do is sheer boredom followed by 1% of sheer panic. Maybe your office feels a bit like that.

 

...but it could also be due to the fact that much of what is necessary to run a successful business is so unpredictable that moments of sheer panic do occur. You may be surprised to learn, however, that people felt this way nearly 300 years ago. Robert Burns, in a poem entitled “To a Mouse” illustrates this. It tells the story of how a farmer who was ploughing his field disturbed the nest of a tiny field mouse; and so concerned was he with what he was doing, that he didn’t even notice.

 

John Steinbeck wrote a novel called Of Mice and Men, the title of which was taken from that 18th century poem. His story was of George and Lennie whose plans for a better future were frustrated by circumstances that were outside of their control. There’s no denying that external events can cause chaos, though that’s not the problem. Instead, it’s the frequency with which it occurs.

 

Does it happen occasionally, or have you made a career out of it? The sign in the reprographics office was aimed at the latter. If this describes your organization, then you need to think seriously about what keeps going wrong. Everyone experiences momentary panic; however, many have learned how to prevent it. 

 

Principally, the culture of their organization is different from yours. Theirs encourages and supports foresight. Its ethos is to think through what could happen and to prepare for those eventualities. It knows how to set priorities and rewards follow-through. Deadlines are met well within the time afforded for the work, and when all is said and done, the overall feeling is that everyone kept their heads. They didn’t panic. They didn’t run around like the Chicken-Little of the 1950s who was so afraid that the sky was falling that all that could be done was to run around.

 

A corporate culture that doesn’t encourage and support foresight lives each day in a state of emergency. Everything is urgent. There’s no time to think or to plan. Everything is a priority, and all of it should have been finished yesterday. The reward for success is getting through the day without experience melt-down, and overtime is the uniform of the day; every day.

 

Changing from a culture of panic into one of level-headedness doesn’t happen overnight, which is one reason why some never change. It’s precisely because of their lack of foresight that they think things will be better tomorrow if they can just get through today. Companies, however, can and do change. Your organization can change, too. It can get better. In order for that to happen, however, you have to change your mindset. You can’t go on thinking as you do in the hope that one day you and everyone in your company will wake up one morning thinking in some other way.

 

To break out of the cycle of panic, you need to start with your criteria for rewards. As long as you give real or imagined prizes for panicked behaviour, you will continue to get it. Take some time right now to think about what you want, figure out what positive thing you can do to make people want it, and then implement it as quickly as you can. You’ll be amazed at the results.

 

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